I live near a Cantonment area and happen to pass by it regularly while going to office... from some days there is construction of Army Building going on there are scores of workers entering and exiting the premises with no visible security check \ frisking of them...

I may be thinking too far; but there can be possibility that one of them can plan listening \ other intelligence device in buildings during construction phase itself ? do we sanitize the whole building and every corner of it before we start using them..? also can they be catched if they are cemented inside slabs etc ?

nits wrote:I live near a Cantonment area and happen to pass by it regularly while going to office... from some days there is construction of Army Building going on there are scores of workers entering and exiting the premises with no visible security check \ frisking of them...

I may be thinking too far; but there can be possibility that one of them can plan listening \ other intelligence device in buildings during construction phase itself ? do we sanitize the whole building and every corner of it before we start using them..? also can they be catched if they are cemented inside slabs etc ?

nits wrote:I live near a Cantonment area and happen to pass by it regularly while going to office... from some days there is construction of Army Building going on there are scores of workers entering and exiting the premises with no visible security check \ frisking of them...

I may be thinking too far; but there can be possibility that one of them can plan listening \ other intelligence device in buildings during construction phase itself ? do we sanitize the whole building and every corner of it before we start using them..? also can they be catched if they are cemented inside slabs etc ?

Almost 20-30 years back, when US was building their embassy in Moscow, they found that the workers had embedded listening bugs all over the place. If i remember correctly, they pulled down the entire building and rebuilt it from scratch. So it is not spy fiction, but reality!

‘‘A foreign intelligence agency is the eyes and ears of the government. Its activities are the direct resultant of the policies of the government, without which any government would be left in a state of limbo’’ — R.N. Kao, the first RAW chief, who died on January 20.

The search for the man who would head RAW was a crucial one. Rameshwar Nath Kao, during his tenure with the IB, had been exposed to the world of intelligence and espionage, having worked in the field in the mid-sixties. Kao set up the structure, followed by K. Sankaran Nair who made it fully operational… It was possibly from a long list of names coined by DS Joshi, then Cabinet Secretary, that the title ‘‘Research and Analysis Wing’’ was selected.

The Bangla Desh Operation possibly began a year before the actual operation was underway. Even when the world did get a whiff of it in the shape of the Mukti Bahani, many remained unaware of RAW’s involvement. By then Phase I of the operation was already completed. Phase II saw the Indian Armed Forces poised for the liberation of Bangla Desh. RAW, along with the Mukti Bahani, when they developed into a formidable force, provided information to the Indian forces.Information collected by an IB foreign desk operative in London from a Pakistani diplomat indicated that the West Pakistanis were contemplating action against Bengali Muslims in Pakistan. By 1968 Indian operatives had already been in contact with the ‘‘pro-Mujib’’ faction. A meeting convened in Agartala during 1962-63, between the IB foreign desk operatives and the Mujib faction indicated to ‘‘Colonel’’ Menon (which in fact was Sankaran Nair’s non de guerre that the ‘group’ was eager to escalate their movement. ‘‘Colonel Menon’’ had warned them that in his opinion it was far too early for them to take any positive action. As Colonel Menon right put it….‘‘they jumped the gun.’’ But this was a total disaster.

A few months later, on January 6, 1968, the Pakistan government announced that 28 persons would be prosecuted for conspiring to bring about the secession of East Pakistan, with India’s help. Mujib was implicated 12 years later as an accused. By now the IB foreign desk (PAK) had moved to the new set-up at RAW. RAW cells were set up all along the border.

RAW sources in Karachi had indicated a movement of troops from Karachi harbour for Dacca. On March 3, a message sent out from Dacca to Calcutta by a RAW operative indicated that a major crackdown was imminent. As the report found its way to New Delhi, an urgent message was flashed — ‘‘…advise Menon…’ to bring in … our friends.’ Towards the end of April the genocide continued and drove 9.8 million into exile to India. The March 1969 RAW report had already spelt out the possibility of Pakistan resorting to a war with India… By the end of May, another RAW assessment sent to the Prime Minister spelt out the need of a ‘‘surgical intervention’’. RAW received the green signal and began mobilising its resources. The Mukti Fauj was known as the Mukti Bahani two months after its formation on the night of March 25, 1971.

With the go-ahead signal, RAW’s underground network in East Pakistan came alive. Every six weeks 2,000 guerrillas were being trained by RAW, capable of taking on the enemy in hit and run encounters.

After the war for liberation was over, Bangla Desh was estimated as a sovereign state with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as its head. RAW agents continued to keep an eye on developments in the newly born country. By the end of 1973, RAW reports began to indicate unrest in the country. Nair met Mujib and apprised him of the situation. Mujib, preoccupied with other events, that engulfed his country, shrugged off the warning.

Four months later, RAW agents received information of a meeting between Major Rashid, Major Farooq and Lt Col Usmani at Zia-ur-Rahman’s residence. The decision, among other things, had centred on the coup. During the three-hour meeting one of the participants had doodled on a scrap of paper, which had been carelessly thrown into the waste basket. The scrap had been collected from the rubbish pile by a clerk and passed on to the RAW operative. The information finally reached New Delhi.

Kao, convinced that a coup was in the offing, flew into Dacca, under cover of a pan exporter. After his arrival at Dacca, he was driven to a rendezvous arranged beforehand. Mujib is reported to have found the exercise highly dramatic and just could not understand why Kao could not have come to see him officially.

The Kao-Mujib meeting lasted one hour. Kao was unable to convince Mujib that a coup was brewing and that his life was threatened, in spite of being given the names of those suspected to have been involved.

Les than three months later, on the night of August 14, an army manoeuvre took place. The Bengal Lancers and the Bangla Desh Armoured Corps moved out of the cantonment to the capital’s half built airport. A few hours later, the same evening, 40 members of the Mujib household along wit Sheikh Mujib, lay dead. The killings lasted three minutes.

Austin, Look up the submarine cable which Tatas bought by taking over VSNL.Mumbai is a big international node for communications. It was understood to be tapped by desh. Most likely the follow-on agrement was to share the data.Chindu might be taking a 2G potshot here.

There's actually 2 bits of info released in public:1) IB is trying to identify which company had put the server in place - they named 5 US co's they were investigating. 2) VSNL and reliance both had an agreement with the US govt which was leaked to the press.

shyamd wrote:There's actually 2 bits of info released in public:1) IB is trying to identify which company had put the server in place - they named 5 US co's they were investigating. 2) VSNL and reliance both had an agreement with the US govt which was leaked to the press.

I am not an engineer to decipher the technicalities behind this

shyamd,1) Any links to that ? Putting a server in place "where" ?2) Both VSNL and Reliance took over companies (teleglobe & yipes) that seem to have been US based and/or owned infrastructure companies. The article itself is not very clear on a few issues. For example:

The agreement provides the U.S. government departments a mechanism for seamless and holistic access to information flowing through the physical infrastructure of VSNL and Teleglobe. Article 1.3 of the agreement says that VSNL shall ensure that all domestic telecommunications routed over the Teleglobe network shall not be routed outside of the U.S. and/or Canada except in emergency situations such as a natural disaster. The agreement also grants the U.S. government departments unimpeded access to information concerning technical matters and physical management or other security measures and the right to ensure compliance with its terms.

Domestic from whose view ? America or ours ? My take is the US allowed VSNL and Reliance to buy out these companies with the proviso, that the US would continue to get all access that they would've had, had it continued to be US owned. In addition, they've also tried to make sure that another government couldn't force the data to flow out of the US, where it could be tapped under that country's laws.

Austin, Look up the submarine cable which Tatas bought by taking over VSNL.Mumbai is a big international node for communications. It was understood to be tapped by desh. Most likely the follow-on agrement was to share the data.Chindu might be taking a 2G potshot here.

The book "Shadow Factory" on the NSA ( an amazing book written ~10 years back) mentions that Mumbai is one area which the NSA covets since virtaully most of the big cables pass through Mumbai and is a dream for tapping info.

It also mentions that the Indian agencies put in place a agreement to tap the lines but it was resisted when VSNL was around ( which had control on the repeater stations of the cables) but the first thing Tatas did when taking over VSNL was to sign a agreement with GoI granting access to all the switches.

Indian agencies have put US based companies on the scanner following a report that suggests that the US had one server located in India as part of the PRISM programme.

Although the US has assured India that it did not collect personalized information, Indian agencies would be conducting their own investigation on the sort of data that has been snooped into. There was just one server in India which allowed the NSA to snoop into e-mails, online chats and also the browsing history. The NSA had said that e-mail logs and timings were collected but not the content. All this data was purged back in 2011.

The Indian agencies would now question companies capable of setting up such servers about the details of this programme. We are interested in finding out if personal data has gone out and also whether some critical information regarding our own security has been snooped into. The details of the company that helped set up this server is also being ascertained, an official with the Intelligence Bureau told rediff.com.

Indian agencies say that companies such as Dell, HP and IBM dominate the server market in India and they are trying to find out if any of these companies had a role to play. Only some of the US based companies are capable of making chips which attach to such servers and hence the suspicion is on these companies. We are sure that no Indian company has helped in setting up such a server for the US, the IB official also said.

We would want to know the kind of data that has been snooped into. Even if the US has only looked into the terror bases overseas, we expect that the information is shared with us. We would not want a repeat of what happened in the David Headley case, officials also pointed out.

These investigations are being launched in the wake of India wanting to set up its own snooping programme, the CMS. India proposes to go about CMS in a big way and says that they would want to have their own set up since terrorism has become a major headache. Groups such as the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the Indian Mujahideen have been using the internet to their advantage and manage to convey messages online. Instead of depending on other countries to crack codes, the CMS will make us extremely self dependant. The CMS programme was launched in the outskirts of New Delhi. In due course of time, there is a proposal to set up servers in South of India which would help expand the reach of the Indian agencies.

-------------------------------US alerted india of a serious terror threat by LeT either by Sea or through BD border. Navy, Coast Guard on full alert.

Congress state govt in meghalya had received information about hijack of IC 814 as early as 84 days prior to hijacking but they didnt share information with IB , RAW or Govt of India as that time NDA was in power at centre .

The person who had sent letter to meghalya congress govt was killed in mysterious conditions within days after he informed meghalya govt and in postmortem bullets were recovered from his body but state govt claimed that he died due to high BP .

14 years later an exhaustive investigation by News X reveals a shocking fact. The Government had received a prior warning about the hijack, a fact if paid attention to could have led to the IC-814 tragedy being averted.

Congress state govt in meghalya had received information about hijack of IC 814 as early as 84 days prior to hijacking but they didnt share information with IB , RAW or Govt of India as that time NDA was in power at centre .

The person who had sent letter to meghalya congress govt was killed in mysterious conditions within days after he informed meghalya govt and in postmortem bullets were recovered from his body but state govt claimed that he died due to high BP .

14 years later an exhaustive investigation by News X reveals a shocking fact. The Government had received a prior warning about the hijack, a fact if paid attention to could have led to the IC-814 tragedy being averted.

New Delhi: The hijacking of IC814, when the entire nation was held hostage for seven grueling day could have been averted. 84 days before the tragedy a whistleblower sent a written warning to the Meghalaya government about a conspiracy being hatched to hijack Indian planes from Nepal.

The warning even outlined how foreign agents were working with a network of Indian traitors to execute the hijacks. It even outlined how arms would be smuggled abroad the aircraft in Kathmandu but the warning was ignored.

Even after the hijack of IC814 the government failed to act on the letter it had received and still hasn't investigated the people it named. So the ''network of Indian traitors'' could still be working against the nation living and working in India but conspiring to hatch another plan that could bring nation to its knees again.

The names of some of these alleged traitors are clearly mentioned in the letter. NewsX is asking why have they not even been investigated?

kaigaA report called the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project from Texax, United States of America states that combined public and private security provided at nuclear power plants is inadequate to defend against a maximum, credible, non-state adversary. Commercial U.S. nuclear reactors remain vulnerable to terrorist threats more than a decade after the 2001 attacks spurred added safety measures, according to the report put out yesterday.

It would be interesting to note in this context the scenario in India which too has been a pet target for several terrorist groups. How safe is our country from the dirty bomb? The answer is that India is a potential target and this is largely because of a very wide distribution of nuclear and radiological material which are under the radar of various terrorist groups.

According to the Indian agencies the biggest challenge before them is to protect the radioactive material. Although none of the terror groups have used this methodology as yet against India, the risk potential is still very high. Various reports and studies have shown that terrorist groups would look to lay their hands on the radioactive material and use a Radiological Dispersal Device. The RDD normally is used by detonating the radioactive material with the help of an explosive. This is known as the dirty bomb and the damage could be immense.

This has been considered to be the most lethal forms of attack that could be deployed by any terrorist group. According to the Intelligence Bureau of India, groups such as the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Harkat-ul-Jihadi Islami are capable of carrying out such attacks. They have a dedicated team to carry out such attacks which include both nuclear and biological terrorism. This is a high skilled job and the operatives chosen for such an operation are being directly trained by the Pakistan army, the Intelligence Bureau points out. The first thing that they are trained to do is a logistic survey in which the material and the locations are identified. This is then transported to a location of choice and after dismantling the source. Once the material reaches the target area, it is made into a dirty bomb. This releases a lot of radiation doses which have a long lasting effect.

An officer with the Delhi police who was part of the training camp last month to deal with such threats told rediff.com that it is necessary that such programmes are conducted in all states. The training programme included dealing with three types of terrorism- nuclear, biological and chemical. The officer says that the biggest challenge is to identify the threat. Until some time back no police personnel could identify the problem which means even if there was a release of a radiation dose, it would not have occurred to anyone that it was nuclear terrorism. The officer further adds that the threat perception could be in any form. It could be either through planting the dirty bomb or even contaminating the water. The first thing for any officer would be to identify the threat and then carry out a rescue operation with the help of paramedics.

According to intelligence reports the form of nuclear terrorism that terror groups would deploy would be smaller in nature. This is mainly because it is not easy to carry out large chunks of material. The factor that they would thrive on the most is the panic that would be caused as a result of such an attack. This is why police personnel part of the crack team to deal with the problem have been told to be discreet about the nature of the attack since there should not be any panic waves among the people which would only double the problem.

According to reports terrorist will try target various places where there is the use of radioactive material. The ideal places for them to find materials according to security officials would be research centres, oil exploration industry, hospitals and also steel manufacturing industries. There have been incidents when such thefts have taken place in India. It occurred first in 1998 at the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research in Chennai. Another incident occurred in the year 2002 at Assam. Following this was an incident of theft of such material from a steel plant in Jamsedhpur.

Indian agencies claim that they have done their best to secure radioactive material in all places and the chances of a theft are bleak. However terrorist groups according to Intelligence reports are planning on sourcing such material from other countries and secretly smuggle it into India. The potential illegal market for the supply of such material has found to be in Russia, according to IB reports. Several Pakistan groups with the help of the ISI have been sourcing this material from illegal markets and will look to smuggle it into India.

In the recent past the police have made several arrests and during the questioning of these operatives it has been revealed that they had planned on targeting nuclear facilities. Some youth had claimed that they had surveyed the Kaiga nuclear plant and had planned on carrying out explosions over there. Experts however state that an explosion at a nuclear power plant would cause a great deal of panic, but there would be no damage to the plant since there is a high level of safety attached to it. However the significance of such an attack would be immense as the security apparatus leading up to the plant would come under question.

Officials say that there is a lot that is being done in India today as the nation has woken up to this threat. There have been several inputs from Intelligence agencies in the recent past about this form of terrorism and hence it becomes extremely important to have a team to fight this problem. The National Disaster Management Authority has trained 100 personnel so far to counter this problem. A proposal has been sent to the government and while quoting the Mayapuri radiation incident of 2010, a request to train more personnel has been made.

"Lashkar recruits who joined the organisation after 2002 Gujarat pogrom often met Karim, now a mentor and guide to a new generation of terror operatives" - Jholas can't resist plugging their filth given half a chance.

ShyamdNuke terrorism is different for different States. The big fear tor West is radioactive materials aka a dirty bomb. AmberG had stated many times that's just a bad day. Besides India already suffered from Cobalt 60 materials dispersed as scrap material in Delhi.The threat to India is real nuke weapon set off by Pakistan inside India.

“They're files that will not have the passwords released unless something happens to specific individuals associated with WikiLeaks. Like the insurance file for Assange, which is more from the cables and info Manning leaked out,” Facebook user Tom-Eric Halvorsen wrote on WikiLeaks’ profile page.

ramana wrote:ShyamdNuke terrorism is different for different States. The big fear tor West is radioactive materials aka a dirty bomb. AmberG had stated many times that's just a bad day. Besides India already suffered from cobalt 60 materials dispersed as scrap in Delhi.The threat to India is real nuke weapon set off by Pakistan inside India.

Indeed. I am glad nat sec apparatus thinking of issue and planning accordingly. Need to do more and create more awareness

Here s what eric snowdens email hoster had to say about american espionage

from lavabit.com

My Fellow Users,

I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit. After significant soul searching, I have decided to suspend operations. I wish that I could legally share with you the events that led to my decision. I cannot. I feel you deserve to know what’s going on--the first amendment is supposed to guarantee me the freedom to speak out in situations like this. Unfortunately, Congress has passed laws that say otherwise. As things currently stand, I cannot share my experiences over the last six weeks, even though I have twice made the appropriate requests.

What’s going to happen now? We’ve already started preparing the paperwork needed to continue to fight for the Constitution in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. A favorable decision would allow me resurrect Lavabit as an American company.

This experience has taught me one very important lesson: without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would _strongly_ recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States.

Sincerely,Ladar LevisonOwner and Operator, Lavabit LLC

source : lavabit.com

umm ..so since BR servers are located in khans land is it required by american law to ....

ndia and the United States were faced with a piquant situation last week over allegations that an American Navy helicopter had intruded into the country’s territory without proper permission. Allaying concerns in Parliament, Defence Minister George Fernandes said there was absolutely no report from the Indian Navy, Air Force or civil aviation authorities that Indian airspace had been violated by a Sea King helicopter from the USS John Young, an American warship that made a port call at Chennai November 26. Admiral Dennis Blair, the senior-most U.S. military commander in the Pacific and Indian Ocean areas who was visiting India, also said that the helicopter, which took off from the Spruance-class destroyer before it docked in the southern city of Chennai, followed “international flag rules.” Both Fernandes and Admiral Blair dismissed news reports that said the U.S. helicopter overflew sensitive Indian facilities, like the nuclear reactor facility at Kalpakkam, 70 km from Chennai. The Defence Minister said civilian radars had picked up the helicopter at a distance of about 123 km from Chennai, flying at a height of about 5,000-6,000 feet. Indian naval authorities, after confirming that the helicopter had taken off from the USS John Young, advised the American warship to recall the aircraft. Fernandes said the helicopter landed on the U.S. warship when it was about 60 km from Chennai, well outside Indian airspace that extends 22 km from the coastline.